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Monday, April 07, 2014

Ouch – do we miss homeschooling.

The first day of Pesach break (okay, it’s really the second!) seems as good a time as any to take a deep breath and evaluate how the school year is going for us so far. The year of schooling and not-homeschooling. A year of literally HUGE continental shifts.

It’s also great timing because we did our annual (this year NOT) homeschool matzah bake this morning. It was weird and very, very different. But there’s a science-y edge that might be interesting and that got the homeschooler in me just a little revved up after gathering dust for a few months. (click through to read all the details and maybe even try it out yourself!)

For the past few years, during March break, and every summer for a couple of weeks, the kids went to day camp. It was like school – a nice break, gave them a chance to be with other kids and socialize “normally” for a change, gave me a few days off… etcetera.

We were happy to do it because we always knew that at the end, we’d go right back to homeschooling at the end.

And when camp was over, we never missed it – the routine, the friends, the teachers. The kids never mentioned any of it again until it was almost time for camp again. We’d all just settle right back in, hardly missing a beat.

But now… now that homeschooling itself is gone? The word “missing” isn’t enough.

It aches.

Missing homeschooling is a constant ache. Not “something missing” like you get your hair cut and your head is lighter and you do a double-take when you look in the mirror.

This ache is “something missing” – like a death in the family.

Something missing:

My kids: They’re not the same. When we see each other now, they are tired and pretty much all “learned-out” for the day. They are also predictably more unpleasant – to me, to each other. Still nice kids, but different.

Me: After being home for almost 9 years, I’m out all the time. Stuff around the house, cooking… not me. Between ulpan and appointments and other classes, and now work, it feels like I’m either heading out or coming home constantly.

Leisure: Homeschooling wasn’t all about leisure, but it was an important ingredient. Naomi needed it to write her little books, and GZ needed it for all his imaginative play. These days, they don’t have much; it’s rare and precious.

Socialization: Yeah, the kids are getting it at school. And we’re meeting adults and getting out and seeing people. But we’re not socializing together – moving around in the world and hanging out with adults and kids the way we’re used to.

This all sounds pretty weak given that I started it by invoking the phrase “a death in the family.”

On some level, I thought it would just be about going to school or NOT going to school, but this decision (which couldn’t be helped in so many ways) has so many more consequences than I could have imagined.

I keep thinking that if our core reasons for sending the kids to school change, we could homeschool again. But I honestly don’t know if it will ever happen. And if and when we do… will things ever be the same again now that their minds have been “tainted” by school?

What were those core reasons?

We need to learn Hebrew – full-time ulpan is impossible with kids at home

We need to find work – again, very, very hard with kids at home

The kids need to learn Hebrew – school is the best way to do that

The kids need friends – and again, school is a quick way to acquire a built-in peer group.

GZ was amazed a few months ago over how many more friends he has this year than last year. But then again, he also cries every day that he doesn’t want to go to gan.

And I think he’s realizing that even though he knows a lot of kids now, they aren’t really his friends. In fact, some are just the opposite. He has said “it will be 107 days before they want to be my friend.” I have assured him that the kids just don’t know how cool he is, how many jokes he knows, what kind of a sense of humour he has and how much he knows about so many subjects. He’s still buying it, but he wishes they’d catch on quicker.

Naomi Rivka is a social bunny, and she is well-loved, not just liked, at her school. Especially compared to the rest of the kids, she is quiet and delicate and poised and demure. Having taught her for the first 8 years of her life, and having seen what Israeli schoolchildren are like, I imagine it’s like having a small adult in a class of baboons.

I fear that she will become a baboon, too, before much longer.

Have the core reasons changed? Well, not much.

Ulpan is no longer a full-time concern, true. But I just started a new job. Granted, it’s part-time, 20 hours a week. And Ted isn’t working and could take over when I’m not here. But it’s also temporary, a mat leave position. So that means in four to six months, I’ll be jobless again and need to re-evaluate yet again. And yet, if it can happen once, it could happen again. Or something else could turn up, equally part-time, equally ideal. Or I could strike it rich in the lucrative field of writing kids’ books… could happen!!! :-D (big zany grin)

The kids do sort of know Hebrew – a bit. The “learning” stage could conceivably go on for years; at what point could you decide they know enough and pull them out???

The “friends” thing has been a bit of a letdown. They’ve met more kids with whom they have more in common just through the small English-speaking chevre (crowd) here in Kiryat Shmuel.

But here’s another thing that has happened. Watching how much Naomi Rivka is learning in limudei kodesh (Jewish studies), and how fast, has completely undermined any sense that I could ever hope to do it myself.

Take Chumash, for example. Where, last year, we learned one new passuk (sentence) every 2 weeks, these days, she’s learning a chapter a week. We took 2 years to learn the first part of Lech Lecha – her class zoomed through it (having started at the very beginning of Bereishis) a couple of months ago already.

This is Grade 2, I tell myself.

These are Israelis, I tell myself.

They know what they’re talking about – literally. They speak the language, and always have, and so will your children if you don’t mess things up.

This is the holy land; the formula is tried and true, I tell myself. Leave it to them to teach the kids; it’s easier.

And also, I ask myself: why move to a new homeland and then decide you want your kids to stick out more than they already do?

There is great emphasis placed here on “klitah,” absorption. To absorb is to choose a school where you think you’ll fit in… and then fit in. Don’t mess with the system, work within the system; be absorbed.

Overall, the system works. I have seen it, and I believe in it. But, but, but.

Sometimes, absorption hurts. Not a small hurt, but a great, big wound, in the very centre of my life.

Of course, self-absorption can hurt, too. Like when it’s 11:00 pm (in Israel, 23:00) and time to sleep because I have work in the morning in a city two hours away and I’m still not in bed and the laundry’s still not hung up, and I’m sitting here trying to convey just how sad I am to be apart from my kids every day and wondering pointlessly how to fix it.

I guess you’ll have to take my word for it. The laundry calls.

If you are homeschooling, appreciate it. I want to throw all kinds of wonky wisdom at you like, appreciate it and hold them close and sleep in more. Like think of me and – what? Hesitate?

That all depends: am I a cautionary tale, or just exactly what I’ve always been… a mama trying to figure out what’s best for her kids, her family, her life? Trying to live the dream Hashem has dreamed for all his people, for all eternity. Maybe, maybe.

I may not get a chance to blog here again before Pesach…

So whether you’re absorbing or being absorbed or just plain absorbent (don’t all parents need a bit of that?), have a happy and kosher Pesach… from the entire MamaLand cast & crew!!!

There's an Israeli/Hebrew word that doesn't really exist in English, because its meaning is part of Israeli culture.גיבוש חברה, להתגבשSchool is key to this. "Gibush chevra," or "lihitgabesh" is to melt into society. Many immigrants become permanent "outsiders" part of olim only crowds and nver "get the jokes," etc. School-going teaches not only quality Hebrew needed for academic success and good employment, but to be part of society, to get the jokes. Being bilingual or multilingual is more than just vocabulary.

I had to laugh at the small adult in a class of baboons. That's the best analogy ever.

Sorry you're feeling the pain of this so keenly. I hope that over time you'll feel better about it as you see more of the benefits of school (you know, in 107 days when GZ suddenly has tons of friends) actually happening to your kids.